crdahlberg

Candy Canes, Bats and Angels

One of the better veggie burgers in town is served in a restaurant that shares two names, honoring the two restaurants that merged some years ago. Retaining both names meant creating a hybrid menu representing the best of both restaurants, so the selections range from burgers to an extensive assortment of Mexican dishes. Behind the restaurant is a popular hangout for young folks, where, before she became a well-known artist, the young singer, Jewel, would sing and strum.

Anticipating a veggie burger banquet, we entered the dual-name establishment, but suddenly sensed that something was amiss. Bright, jagged patterns of red and white stabbed the ceiling, displacing its usual drab comfort. An unexpected, inexplicable army of candy canes exploded above us, the display grabbing and gluing our eyeballs upward. Thousands of candy canes dangled from the ceiling, the beams, the air conditioning ductwork, the wiring.

What could be the meaning of this candy cane convention?

Gradually, the obvious dawned upon me: it was a holiday thing. The restaurant staff had taken a break from their bleak chores of battering chicken fried steak and eyeing and peeling potatoes, indulging instead in hanging cratefuls of holiday candy cane decorations in every hang-able niche.

The display was impressive. They hung from the rafters like inverted bats, awaiting their chance to fly.

Indeed, from beneath the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas, in the dark of night sometime after the setting of the sun and the welcome gloom of the moon, the world’s biggest urban bat colony emerges for their daily feeding. In one night alone, the 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats will consume 10,000 to 20,000 pounds of insects.

Unlike the unpredictable appearance of the restaurant candy canes, these bats are a permanent fixture, giving relief from an otherwise Moses-scale plague of insect life. We can only imagine the misery of living without this batty multitude, giving us an umbrella of bug protection.

Another far more ancient and intimidating population, a legion of invisible Heavenly Hosts, also invades our world. It moves without the candy cane flash of seasonal restaurant décor. It lacks the predictable routine and daily schedule by which an under-bridge bat colony is controlled.

Instead, encampments of the Angelic Community are neither regulated by temporary seasons of celebration, nor are they governed by the setting of the sun and the rising of the moon.

Their place above the rafters of our world, the firmament, is never ending. And in the moment of our greatest need, these sentinals are spirited as emissaries, so that in a crowded but often lonely world, we are not left alone.

A Sidewalk Story

Had his head not been created facing up and outward, he would have missed seeing the emergence of the woman with a bright crimson flower in her hair gradually appearing before him, returning his gaze. He was the first to arrive, his green t-shirt clad creator having arrived early for the event.

His memories of his own former existence, beyond his current chalk-dust appearance, were clouded and lacking in historical perspective. He wondered again at the woman still emerging beneath the creative hand of the neighboring artist. Her eyes emerged, then her full face—a beautiful image, he thought, despite the odd clothing adorning her, from an age and context unlike his own, an Asian woman whose time and place he could not quite comprehend.

His confusion over his own appearance gradually cleared a bit; he recalled that had been a star of the silent film, a clown bearing the name Charlie Chaplin, later also enjoying success in the talking film era.

But outside of his current chalky existence, he remembered nothing of the past or the future. The chalk could resurrect nothing of history or context. Lacking a body of flesh to connect him, this moment was all he could know.

As his artist-creator added decoration around Charlie, it gave him time to peer over his shoulder to view another woman, dressed in Western Victorian style more familiar to his own context. A playful, billowing hat crowning her head drew his attention. Her artist created her as a splashy showgirl, her beauty expressed in shades of pink. When her gaze connected with Charlie’s, he saw the two of them gliding on a dance floor, music softly cushioning them, the warm light of candles extending their stay long into the evening. If only, he pondered, they were breathing, living and loving—fully formed three dimensional creatures instead of sidewalk chalk.

A sudden splash of color above his head jolted Charlie. It was a thing, or a man, or—was it a woman? A body draped in shocking tones, a stretched torso, absent arms and a single enormous eye—or was it? Again, lacking context beyond this day’s chalk-appearance, there was no way to comprehend its abstract expressionism. The geometric human figure puzzled him; their worlds were distant, detached from each other.

Then, appearing from yet another stretch of colored chalk dust, Charlie noticed a woman—a mother with her children surrounding her. As the artist chalk-stroked the mouths of the children, they seemed to come alive, crowding, teasing and playfully challenging each another—laughter—lots of laughter. On this day of their shared chalk lives, Charlie concluded that this was the most beautiful sight within his view—it held a vision of hope and of promise.

The orange hues of early sunset announced the gradual end of the brief existence of Charlie and his chalk cadre. Soon, uncareful shoes eroded the chalk, smearing their limbs, their hair, their faces, their eyes into the concrete sidewalk. Silently as they appeared, their dust mingled, their figures retiring again into timelessness.

As they disappeared, the artist creators likewise disappeared, drifting apart and dissolving into the deepening shadows, having resurrected, if only briefly, the somnambulist activities of shared chalk-drawn lives.

But unlike their creations, the artists reserved one power, which set them apart from their art: the power of choice.

They alone could choose to end their drift, to stop the dissolve of the paths that had brought them together today as artists with a dream. Against the approaching nightfall, they could still choose to pursue, to explore the new friendships this day had held for them. And they could join with each other, bringing one another along, past tonight, and into tomorrow.

Doing the Math

Albert Pujols will earn $250 million over the next ten years to play professional baseball for the Anaheim Angels; that’s $25 million a year under the terms of his new contract.

That’s all I know about Pujols. He gets paid very well to play with a small white ball. I rarely follow professional sports on television or in the newspaper. Admittedly, some human sports dramas, for example the Olympic Games, can be exciting. But huge paychecks make pro sports hard to enjoy; many of us simply can’t afford to attend many sport venues. Inflated ticket prices are required to help pay for the giant salaries being earned by the top players.

Of course, simply bellyaching over high professional sports salaries won’t solve the problem. In this sports-crazed society, lowering player salaries isn’t going to happen. So instead, let’s increase the salaries for the rest of us so they are commensurate with that of the sports elite.

Here’s how it works. Under this sports celebrity wage-matching approach, if we’re flipping burgers at a local hamburger joint, we’ll suddenly earn far more than our current minimum wage allows. Let’s suppose the owner gets paid an equivalent salary as the sports celebrity. Of course, we should expect the restauranteur to receive, say, 50 percent of that paycheck to pay for the restaurant’s operating costs plus his own salary. He’ll still have half of the $25 million sports celebrity salary–$12.5 million–to split among his 20 employees for their wages. That will give each of us burger flippers an annual salary of $625,000. I can live with that. Of course, the cost of a burger will rise accordingly.

But don’t worry. Remember, we’re all going to receive a sports celebrity-comparable wage increase.

Here’s another example. Let’s say we’re teachers. We’re easily instructing 150 students each day. To cover the school’s overhead—expenses like building repair, textbooks, utility bills and the like, 50 percent of our $25 million salary will be deducted. Fair enough because we still get to keep the other half—we’ll take home a $12.5 million salary. Teaching even the orneriest, manners-deprived kid is worth that kind of cash. My $25 million salary, divided by 150 students, will cost parents a mere $166,667 per child. No discounts available for multiple kids. (“Oh…will that be cash or check? Please, spell my name correctly.”) And, sorry, no credit cards accepted.

Think of this. Once all of our salaries are likewise upwardly-adjusted to meet sports celebrity salary standards, we’ll actually have enough money to purchase a ticket to watch Pujols play ball!

And, oh, let’s not forget to bring $250 for the sports celebrity-adjusted price of a Stadium Dog with relish!

Half-Drawn Shades

The shades are descending; they’re being pulled down. It’s the end of an era.

Today was the last reunion of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. The Association is being officially disbanded.

One Association member who survived the Japanese attack explains, “We just ran out of gas, that’s what it amounted to. We felt we ran a good course for 70 years. Fought a good fight. We have no place to recruit people anymore: Dec. 7 only happened on one day in 1941.”

The membership of the Association is gradually evaporating from the attrition of old age, poor health and death.

It’s an unavoidable reality. No matter what our age, change due to external influences presents its challenges, whether from age and health issues, or from job loss. We feel less in demand—less needed.

We may feel like out-of-print books. The contents are still useable, but the worn cover and bent spine are not so fashionable anymore. Our sphere of influence—if we feel we ever had one—is contracting still further.

That’s life. Over time, we sense our world eroding. Tasks that we performed with ease and skill are handed off to other folks we don’t know. No matter that we still can handle the tasks with the same ease and skill. Others don’t perceive it that way, and they are the ones now in control. It’s time for us to move on.

So…what’s next? Move on to what? Our ego feels deflated.

But it’s not like there’s nothing else to do.

There’s time to focus on relationships and the skills required to being a good friend. Listening more and talking less. Befriending those who have no ability to advance our own ambitions. Thanking them, aloud.

There’s time to focus on reinforcing our values. Relaxing one discipline in our lives seems to relax several disciplines. If we write down the things we would like most to change about ourselves, they nearly always relate to the lack of specific disciplines. Time to focus on our values.

There’s time to focus on undeveloped skills. A friend of mine is taking up writing. Always a good verbal communicator, job loss and health issues forced him to re-think his goals. He’s retooling himself to write promotional materials. He’s completed the coursework. He’s made contacts. He’s reinventing himself.

Maybe we should close the shades on the room in which we find ourselves, move on to the next room, and again eagerly raise the shades.

The view might just be better.

Notes on Trees

This year’s Thanksgiving festivities brought out the best in some of us.

Someone attached partially-completed notes to trees, a park bench, and anywhere else they could draw attention in front of one of our favorite little eateries.

The creators of the notes began many of them with, “I am thankful for…” with a blank space left for passersby to complete with their own words, while some were intentionally left blank, awaiting creative and heartfelt comments.

The note about friends is hard to beat.

But here are some other suggestions:

Perhaps it takes a purer faith to praise God for unrealized blessings than for those we once enjoyed or those we enjoy now. ~A.W. Tozer

O Lord that lends me life,
Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness. ~William Shakespeare

Got no check books, got no banks. Still I’d like to express my thanks – I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night. ~Irving Berlin

Secret Friends

Maybe your secret friend was someone who you thought others would not approve of. Or perhaps that person didn’t quite fit your style because he or she was quite different from you. It’s not an easy thing when loyalty confronts conventional expectations.

One of my secret friends is a student I teach in the parole office. Give him some hair and remove his head-to-toe skinhead tattoos and he’d be your best next door neighbor. Thoughtful. Kind. Caring.

But with tattooed skinhead symbols, skulls scrawled all over him, and “5150” (“a person deemed to have a mental disorder that makes them a danger to him or her self, and/or others and/or gravely disabled”) around his neck, and he appears to be a social persona non grata. Not the sort of fellow you might want to be perceived as being your friend.

I’ve known him for over two years. He struggles to progress toward the academic goals I’ve hoped for him in my literacy lab at the parole office. Medications cause him to slump over his computer terminal frequently. I wake him up. Sometimes he leaves the class in a drug-induced stupor.

If he stopped taking the drugs, he would resume cutting his legs with his pocketknife. His legs are numb from nerve damage, making it difficult for him to ride his bicycle, his only means of transportation.

He started taking drugs to control his psychoses at the age of five. Growing up, he regularly battled his violent father, who soon left him and his mother. Now he now lives with a girlfriend in a motel, which, because of his disabilities, is partially subsidized by the parole department. Ironically, his girlfriend works as a security guard.

At age 15, he was incarcerated. He served 15 years for attempted murder and for assaulting a corrections officer while in prison.

Once enamored with skinheads, he now disdains them, recognizing that he gave up much of his life to remain loyal to their errant beliefs. An iron cross now covers the swastika tattooed on the back of his hand.

My friend believes in God, in many ways to God, and in many gods. He asks me to pray for him, and I do. He is glad for it, and he tells me so, and he tells me he prays for me.

In time, our paths will inevitably part. And when they do, we both will have benefited from our journey together.

Protest and Pursuit

I should have known better. But my curiosity and emotions got ahold of me during that early morning trudge to meet my train—what could the clamor mean, these shouting voices echoing through this normally peaceful and quiet college campus? In the distance, the voices grew louder. I was onto the trail of a Happening! Could it be the beginning of yet another “Occupy” protest with folks sitting-in to rail against big banks and corporate villains? Perhaps I would stumble upon a breaking story, worthy of the evening news. And I was equipped with my video-enabled iPhone—I had to investigate! But I’d better be fast. I usually have a few minutes to spare before the train arrives. It would have to be a two-minute or less diversion for me to still be able to intercept my train.

I rounded the corner and came upon the marchers who had taken up their protest. I grabbed my iPhone and began recording the quickly-developing events. But wait, there were no police to control the gathering crowd. A lone security guard watched from his golf cart-like buggy, more amused at the event than concerned for my safety. What if this crowd should seek a target and take their anger against the system out on me, the news reporter? I didn’t exactly panic at the thought—but maybe I blanched—yes, that’s it—a full blanch.

It gradually dawned on me. This was no full-bore, nearly-getting-out-of-control protest. It was almost polite. And there were no slogans decrying “the Man” or “the System.” Instead, I learned that it was a student-led advocacy to improve the wages of the college food service workers, hardly the sort of event that would threaten my life or make the evening news.

I recognized I would have to move quickly. I concluded my video recording. My two-minute long diversion left me no time to spare. I launched into a shortcut to the train station to save time; I cut quickly to the back of the building to shorten my train trek. But wait! A large construction project blocked my path. I quickly found a way around it and squirmed through, only to have my path disappear behind a construction fence. I backtracked and then tried to go the long way around the construction, ending up nearly across the street from the train station. I walked quickly, relieved to have found a way out of my quandary. Just as I completed this detour, I discovered I had entered another cul-de-sac. Never mind. I would cut through the hedge to the street.

I failed to recognize that a hidden chain-link fence ran the length of the hedge. I broke into a trot inspecting for any way out. Unfortunately, I was moving directly away from the train station. Without finding a break in the fence, I came upon a tennis court. Surely, there would be a gate out of the tennis court area, and yes, there was! I hustled to it, backpack now jouncing smartly on my back, and found—a large padlock and chain barred my exit! I was stuck like a lab rat in a maze. There was no way out.

With few minutes until the train’s approach, I made a desperate, beeline charge back toward the site of the rioting students, where my shortcut path had first gone awry. The backpack bounced violently as I hit full stride, jostling my lunch and tumbling my coffee thermos. Would I make it to the train in time? Could my heart manage the unaccustomed and sudden surge of adrenalin? Would subsequent passengers find me, exhausted, splayed out in the shrubs?

As I urged my body toward a sprint, I passed a middle-aged couple, who politely bade me a pleasant, “Good morning!” as though my reckless flight, panting breath and galloping backpack were the commonest occurrence on their slow daily stroll.

I hurtled through the intersection, daring a passing bus or car to obstruct my path. The clanging bell announced the lowering of the crossing gates. I told myself I had to make it. Faster! Faster!

And then it was over. I seized the hand grab, bounced up the single step and tumbled aboard the train, the last passenger to alight.

Drenched with perspiration, I steadied my breathing, trying to hide my flushed and panting state. I eased into a seat beside an unknowing passenger lost in sleep.

Seconds before, I would have risked a coronary to make this train. But like many fleeting life goals, once I had achieved it, I was ready to board the next train to the familiar comforts of home.

Bomb Threats

An urgent voice came over the intercom: “All personnel evacuate the building immediately!”

Agents quickly stuck their heads into my classroom door at the parole office to see if I needed help clearing the students from the room. I grabbed my indispensable possessions—backpack, coffee mug, and iPhone charger—and despite the urgency of the message, casually stopped by to use the restroom on the way out.

This was our second bomb threat on two successive Tuesdays, so the novelty had worn off. That’s why I assembled my belongings and executed the evacuation at a leisurely pace.

Six months ago, we had our first bomb threat, and my evacuation tactics were far less polished. I had bolted from the chair, bruising my thigh on the low-hanging desk drawer, barely concealing my semi-panicked plea for students to exit—quickly, please! We had hustled to the far side of the parking lot, speculating about how long we would be outside, and was there really a bomb? If so, who had planted it and why? Creative conjecture ran rampant. What if the building blew up? Were we far enough away to not risk injury? To top it off, I then realized—I had to urgently use the restroom!

But there was no such anxiety this time. I was a seasoned veteran—an experienced bomb-scare advisor. I knew it would take two-and-a-half hours for the bomb-sniffing dog to arrive and run its course through the building with promises of puppy-treats dancing in its brain for a job well-done. A final rooftop sweep would signal the final “all clear.” By that time, I could easily hike the three-quarters of a mile to Starbucks, sip a Cafe Americano, check my e-mail messages, and leisurely return. So I did.

As I walked, I wondered. Who could have called in this parole office bomb scare? A discontented parolee? An agent threatened with job loss because of agency downsizing? A cleaning crew contractor, disgruntled by ongoing cockroach wars?

I was determined to discover who the culprit might be.

After my hike back from Starbucks, I still had time to kill. So I opted for pancakes at Dennys, where I discovered a glut of other refugee staff members from the parole office, killing time, sipping coffee, munching on selections from the Breakfast Specials section of the menu.

And then the obvious conclusion struck me.

I’m no detective. But I can sniff out a Denny’s manager who’s just a bit too eager to bloat a day’s profit from the misfortune of traumatized, bomb-threatened parole staff, fattening his income with my humble short stack of wheat pancakes and the surrounding sea of parole agents downing oversized three-egg Spanish omelets and greasy hashed brown potatoes.

The Denny’s manager – he’s the one calling in the bomb threats.

Oh, yeah.

This Is Not the Way Home

“Familiarity breeds contempt, while rarity wins admiration.”
–Apuleius (124 AD – 170 AD)

Last Thursday, on my way home from work, my train missed my stop. Now I could have expected to possibly miss my stop from train-induced slumber, but never have I been on a train that missed a stop.

To be clearer, the train performed its customary stop, but the doors on my car did not open. Unable to disembark, the train soon carried on its way, with us, the unwilling passengers who were unable to disembark, still jammed behind the train’s closed doors. Our station quickly passed behind us.

“Press the black button!” someone from our end of the car yelled to those imprisoned behind the doors at the far end of the car. A yelling chorus soon began. “Press the darn button!”

Someone finally pressed the button, apparently alerting the conductor to our unfortunate dilemma, and the train halted in the No Man’s Land that was neither my stop nor the next stop, but somewhere between. Outside, there were only scrub bushes and the gravelly bed of the train tracks.

Eventually, the voice of the conductor came over the intercom, explaining that we would back up to the wayward station we had passed. But there was no movement for five minutes. Finally, the voice on the intercom again: “We do not have permission to back up. We will continue on to the next stop.”

Mild panic spread through the still-standing passengers. How would they get to their awaiting autos, parked at the train station behind us, quickly receding from view? How long would it take to catch the next train going the opposite direction? With some of the women wearing tortuous high heels, would they be forced to walk back to our distant, intended station?

I decided not to wait to find out. When the train finally halted at the next station and disgorged us like confused tourists, I disembarked and guided a blind fellow traveler to the westward-bound boarding platform of this unfamiliar station. Then I started walking homeward.

Fortunately, this station and my usual station were equidistant to my home; I would later measure both routes homeward to be an identical 1.9 miles.

Like ants on auto-pilot returning to their mound, our well-traveled routes always seem shorter than less familiar ones. Today’s path forced me toward new decisions. The homeward hike seemed far longer because of the choices along the way. Which red light would offer me the shorter wait to cross the street? Would the sidewalk or bicycle path be the more direct route? With no experience to inform me, I followed my heart. A broad wooden bridge stretched before me on the bike path. In the growing dusk, I was all by myself, and I stopped.

Construction workers must have left this wooden bridge for my use alone, at this time, on this day, to service my displaced homeward hike.

To my left, I heard the distant sound of the freeway. To my right, a partially-occupied condo complex waited silently for the arrival of the inhabitants at the workday’s conclusion. In the distance, a train horn heralded the arrival of the westbound train that would return the displaced commuters to their familiar surroundings, ants returning to the mound.

A fallen leaf blowing along the wooden bridge reminded me that there are some choices in life that we are able to select, like a well-worn path home. And there are some that we don’t get to choose, like uncooperative train doors.

And sometimes, the only choice we really have is whether we make a graceful transition between the two.

Zombies in Hollywood

I first learned of the famed corner of Hollywood and Vine while reading a Dennis the Menace comic as a young boy. The famed Taft Building still stands here, once home to offices of the silent film era’s movers and shakers including Charlie Chaplin and Will Rogers. Nearby, of course, are other landmarks such as the Capitol Records Building, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Hollywood sign and Graumann’s Chinese Theater.

And then, there’s this. A few weeks before Halloween, these early celebrants paraded on this famous corner of Hollywood and Vine—in fact, the Zombies were on parade. They groaned, they grunted, they limped on wounded limbs. They stared their otherworldly, blank stare into my eyes. And then, to my relief, they moved on without capturing me to join in their ghoulish procession.